The Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, or House Bill 2004, strikes back at recent moves by financial institutions that assign category codes to firearms and ammunition retailers.
Through these, firms may track the legal purchases of guns and ammunition.
Moore’s bill asserts that “the new Merchant Category Code will allow the banks, payment card networks, acquirers, and other entities involved in payment card processing to identify and separately track lawful payment card purchases at firearms retailers in West Virginia.”
The bill intends to head off the “unprecedented surveillance of Second Amendment activity and unprecedented information sharing between financial institutions and the government.”
The new House bill clearly states that “a financial institution may not disclose financial records…in a manner that singles out or discriminates against any person based on activity protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
It further allows for state residents to sue credit card companies if their Second Amendment rights are violated, and the state treasurer may bar financial institutions from certain state contracts if they have violated the proposed law.
Moore bluntly described the controversy as being instigated by “woke activists and their allies on Wall Street.” He accused the tandem of undermining American freedoms and the way of life of law-abiding citizens.
The West Virginia official also asserted that the legislation, if passed, would protect state residents from attempts to “create a de facto national gun registry using credit and debit card records.”
Clearly financial institutions have no business tracking firearms purchases, and data disclosures from these efforts could be used in numerous ways to suppress Second Amendment rights.
The battle began in September when Visa, Mastercard, and American Express announced sales from gun stores and gun-related purchases from sporting goods retailers will now be assigned distinct category codes.
This move meant the institutions marched in lockstep with a sweeping global gun control initiative.
The worldwide drive was spurred on by the activist New York-based Amalgamated Bank and carried out through the International Organization for Standardization, a Switzerland-based non-governmental entity.
Amalgamated Bank president Priscilla Sims Brown freely admitted to the move’s intentions, saying that when certain purchasing patterns are detected, “we can provide that information to authorities to investigate.”
Amalgamated Bank’s push for the change drew the support of a wide range of gun control groups and their partnering politicians, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Federal law clearly prohibits the government from forming a national registry of gun owners, but companies and private groups do not face the same prohibition.
Credit and debit card firms are free to do so and then in turn provide that information to authorities.
There are no legal ramifications — as of yet — for companies that flag purchases and pass them along to law enforcement or others.
West Virginia is attempting to change that.
State legislators highlighted the pressure applied to credit card companies by 28 members of Congress who advocate gun control.
As is clear, the government expects the financial institutions to carry out surveillance of constitutionally protected activities and report their findings to law enforcement.
West Virginia is only the first state to target these firms for this alarming activity. Florida’s new agricultural commissioner Wilton Simpson recently announced that he will introduce similar legislation to block credit card companies from using the distinct merchant category codes to track firearm and ammunition purchases.
His proposal will be armed with a $10,000 fine for each transaction illegally tracked in Florida.
